Traveling to Vladivostok

Every journey has its beginning… this one started at 0430hrs on Thursday morning, 26 July 2012, as Dad and I made final adjustments to our bags.  We linked up with Lance, Liz, and Jasper at the Dongducheon train station and took the three-hour ride through Seoul to Incheon International Airport. 

Lunch at Incheon International Airport.

Apparently, Vladivostok isn’t that popular of a destination, considering the check-in lines compared to the Aeroflot flight to Moscow.  We made it to the gate on time, despite a few delays involving reshuffling baggage to meet the check-in luggage weight restrictions and making sure our documents were all in order, and in contrast to the other two Aeroflot flights I’ve flown, this one departed on time (though technically speaking it was Aeroflot operated by Vladivostok Air).

Take a guess which line is for the Vladivostok flight and which one is for Moscow…	Lance, Liz, and Jasper on their way to the boarding gate.

Our route took us across Korea and into Vladivostok from the south.  Even as we were flying over these far eastern reaches of Siberia, the most striking difference from Korea was the far lower population density.  In Korea, even in the more remote and rugged sections of eastern Korea, the vast majority of the valley and draws have some form of town or village.  In contrast, Siberia is extremely empty.  There are still towns, quarries, and factories (some in a better state of upkeep than others) but they are mere dots amid the vast wilderness of the land.

A mine and surrounding area on the approach to Vladivostok airport.

Vladivostok’s airport is actually about 40km north of the city.  We avoided the nagging taxi drivers (who wanted to charge 2000 rubles – about $65) and instead took the No. 107 bus (which departs on the hour and costs 70 rubles per person – about $2, with an additional 10 rubble fee per piece of luggage you want stored under the bus).  The fares are collected by a ticket lady who rides with the bus and gives you a ticket, which really is more of a receipt than anything.  The bus driver and ticket lady didn’t speak English, but one of the passengers knew a few words so we were able to communicate that we were going all the way to the train station (the last stop on the line). The bus itself was old, dilapidated, and decorated with colorful curtains and stuffed animals, but the worst part was the complete lack of air conditioning.

The ticket lady collects payment for tickets on board the rather colorful bus taking us to the train station.	Some of the new apartments rising up on the hills as we drive through Vladivostok.

On the ride to Vladivostok (which took about an hour 15 minutes), the surroundings became increasingly urbanized as we got to the city limits.  We ran into a traffic jam shortly inside the city limits.  There are a lot of the old Soviet-style ugly block apartments and run-down houses, as well as evidence of new construction (roads, apartments, etc.). 

The route from the airport to the train station (blue).  The railroad is marked in red.

We got to the train station around 1730hrs local time (GMT +11), checked our luggage into a storage area (manned by a meticulously slow lady at the cost of 100 rubles per luggage for up to 24 hours), checked in at the ticket counter, and set off to find a place to eat.

The Vladivostok Train Station.

NOTE: Most of the maps in these posts come from Garmin BaseCamp and the tracks are from my Garmin GPS.